Just before Hell broke loose again
by Listelia
Summary: SPECIAL AFFAIRS TEAM TEN. Nam Ye Ri knew exactly what was her choice. She knew it wasn't over yet. It'd never be the end of the nightmare, until the death of a murderer called "F"... But she desperately wanted to believe they deserved to be happy. She wanted the man she loved to be free - to forget these 7 years of Hell. She wanted to give him Faith. But it failed. (post season 2)
1. OP song : Like A Candle

It was that period of the year when rain fell from the sky like a surprise, a curtain of water in a wave of sun, suddenly, crackling on the street. People ran to take refuge, a bag or a newspaper in protection over their heads.

Nam Ye Ri watched the shining drops, pearling on the edge of the phone booth and she wanted to laugh.

_Everything had begun under a shower of light like this one._

_And everything had seemed to end under one also._

The rattling on the glass stopped, and a rainbow spread over the building, in front of her.

She smiled, held out her hand to check it did not rain any more.

- "Good. Let's go!" she said tenderly, wrapping her shawl around her belly.

The sun played in the puddles.

_It had not ended there._

_Oh, no, not at all. On the contrary, everything had begun after this end._


	2. Sleeping Snake

Noodles with mushrooms were perfect.

Sticky, black, perfumed. Not too much soaked, exactly like noodles should always have been.

- "Cheers, _Gaeko_", giggled Baek Do Shik, before mouthing a handle of noodles. "Huuuum, th's good… a-a-a-ah, hot!"

The detective sitting on the driver side shot him a glance.

- "Did you say something, _sunbae_?"

"The Viper" shook his head, still chewing. He swallowed, then wiped his mouth with his backhand. His moon face lightened with a smile that went up to the messy little curls over his ears. He patted his bald skull.

- "I wasn't talking to you", he answered.

On the other side of the windscreen, the dead end they were watching was still deserted.

- "The rat won't come out his hole any soon", said the other detective, yawning. "He probably guessed we're in hideout. Ah, this is getting annoying…"

Baek Do Shik chewed in space, bothered by a tiny bit of noodle. He slid his thumb nail between his teeth.

- "Patience, buddy. Patience…" he mumbled.

His small eyes quickly browsed the street. He snorted, amused.

- "Start the engine", he ordered.

The man raised a sceptical eyebrow.

The shower rain passed on the dead end in a few minutes, soaking the ad posters and the cardboards abandoned next to trash cans, leaving only twinkling drops on the grey steel of electric poles.

- "Ah, it's this period of the year again", said the detective, leaning to look at the sky through the window. "Are you gonna take your days off, _sunbae_? Like always, to go see the family?"

The Viper was still staring at the street.

- "What family?" He broke in, blowing a nostril.

His smile had gotten bigger. His team-mate gave up pushing the question and switched on the engine.

A few minutes later, the suspect stuck his head out in the dead end.


	3. Ring man

Both newbies felt a little hurt.

- "D'you think they're really crazy about him?" whispered the first one, leaning in his chair to speak to the cubicle next to him. "Or are they just pretending 'coz he's rich?"

- "He could at least share the fun with others! We're almost the same age", whispered the second one, hiding behind a file.

One of the older detectives slapped them on the nape of the neck as he passed behind.

- "Don't you brats have anything else to do? These young people, _really_ ! They have no idea what the real deal is!"

- "Come one, _sunbae_, you're always bullying us!" they yelped. "Why aren't you never taking it out on Inspector Park?"

The man pulled a face. He rolled his shoulders in his jacket, then squatted between both chairs.

- "Inspector Park is your problem, eh… Am I right ?"

Both newbies shook their head very seriously.

- "He's hardly older than us, and still you treat him with the same respect you pay to an old folk", complained the first one, chewing on his pen.

- "He's doesn't have _at all_ the same style _you_ all have, can't you see he's just bragging?" pouted the second one. "And have you seen his ring? It's - shameless!"

The detective glanced upwards.

- "You guys are so far from being there yet… Park Min-Ho isn't a brat, as you believe he is. You should learn from him! He worked three years for special affairs TEN. His boss, it was the Monster - and his _sunbae_, the Viper. When you will have accumulated that much time with legends, you'll get more respect."

There was a moment of offended thinking.

Both newbies had no idea what or who the detective spoke of, actually.

- "But the way he dresses and this _ring_, you have to reckon this is not what an effective inspector should look like! He's all fashion and _look at me, I'm the best_", belched the first one.

The second one risked an eye beyond the wall of the cubicle and stirred restlessly.

- Shshshsh!

- _Sunbae_, Do you have two minutes to speak about the red heels case? I just got a tip.

Park Min-Ho was approaching, smiling.

_Oh yes, you had all the reasons of the world to hate him when you were only a rookie freshly bumped out of school._

The three piece suit of the inspector was perfect, his hair cut in the last fashion and his smile just far too confident and annoying.

The detective stood up, dusting his knees.

- "Your 88 called, Ringo?"

- "Yep", the young man agreed. He gave a scrap of paper to his senior. "I think it's worth having a look at it."

The man took the time to make a bubble with his chewing-gum, then he nodded.

- "You're right. I'll call two or three friends for our – special - party."

He gave a friendly pat onto Min-Ho's shoulder, passing next to him, then decided otherwise and turned around.

- "While I call, can you explain to these brats why you're wearing jewelry ?"

Park Min-Ho stiffened, his cheeks red.

- "_Sunbaenim_!"

The detective turned heels with a chuckle.

- "Yeah, explain ahead, _inspector_."

Both newbies looked half cocky – half curious. The young man let out a sigh, putting on one of the cute pouts that made the women of the station weak in the knees. He played with the big silver ring on his index, looking undecided.

- "Sorry, guys !" he suddenly broke out, before escaping with long strides.

- "Heeeeeeyyyy!"

Both newbies sat back, grumbling. They jumped when a snigger burst behind them.  
The old detective who picked his nails, his feet on his desk, winked at them.

- "Ringo is far from being a swank like you think", he laughed, playing with the accessories of his pocketknife. "He didn't gain the respect of his seniors gossiping like you two."

A sarcastic chuckle swished under his mustache.

- "A beautiful ring, right? I don't wish you one of the same! Speaking of a ring, yekyekyek. _Cut_. The finger of little rookie. _Snap_! Kidnapped during his third year of service."

Another snigger that made their hair stand on their neck, and a the creepy jingle of the mini-scissors.

- "_Nine Fingers_ Park Min-Ho, who nailed down the investigation of team TEN while he was bleeding like a pig on a hook. You should read a bit, kids."

Both newbies shivered.

- "See you later!" trumpeted with his usual good mood the inspector they nicknamed Ringo, sticking his head a second in the door frame of the office.

The women giggled, waving at him and the men nodded, friendly, over the files they were consulting.

Both rookies exchanged a look after his departure then, in a common movement, dived back with renewed energy in the affairs they were given to study.

Being in a team with the inspector that looked like a top model looked suddenly very attractive.


	4. Beauty & the Beast

The students had become used to it.

Often, at the end of the day, when the sun slipped, orange, under the thick curtains of the lecture hall, the door opened discreetly behind them. The young woman skipped in the back row and stayed for the last hour of the class, an enigmatic smile on her peaceful face.

After some time, they noticed the professor became gentler when she was there. His sarcastic expression dimmed down, he did not insist as sharply on the horrible pictures he used as support for the study.

After the class, he tidied up his files on the writing desk, without looking up. She went down the alley with slow steps, her shawl floating on her shoulders, light on the slender heels of her boots.

She smiled like only an angel could, until he eventually raised his chin.

He cleared his throat, tilted his head.

His dark lashes greeted her politely.

- "Hello", he mumbled.

- "Hello", she answered softly.

Then he went up the stairs with her, the files under his arm, his long black jacket brushing against the sleeve of the young woman.

They walked to the parking lot, sometimes chatting without haste, about the class or the people she had seen at the library during the day. She settled on the passenger seat without waiting for his invitation and he sat behind the steering wheel.

At this moment, something that looked like a smile brushed his lips.

She watched it in the reflection of the rear-view mirror and her eyes sparkled.

The road scrolled in front of them, the same road every day, unwound with the quiet rhythm of the music in the radio set.

He left her in front of her house, answered with a quite nod the waving of her hand, waited for her to enter and for the light to fill the window behind the pink curtain.

Then he drove to his apartment and parked with a sigh, with a last glance at the empty seat next to him.

The next day, everything happened the same again.

The students decided of a code name for them after watching the story for a few weeks.

_Years are needed for a nightmare to fade away and for us to begin believing, one step after another, that it is possible to dream again.__  
_

Nam Ye Ri remembered perfectly the day of the second sunny shower, when Special Affairs team TEN had officially been dissmissed.

Park Min-Ho waved with his bandaged arm, a big smile on his face, standing next to his red car pearled with rain. Detective Baek Do Shik, hands on his hips, laughed silently in the bus shelter dotted with transparent drops.

In front of the door, the director had brought a hand to his face, as to wipe it with an absent-minded gesture.

But Nam Ye Ri had not been fooled.

_Yeo Ji-Hoon was crying._

So for once, she had thanked the rainy sky for her gift to read faces.

She had smiled, a little dazzled by the rainbow that already drilled through he clouds.

And made her choice.

She would never leave him alone.

He only had had a not really surprised shrug, the first time he had met her in the corridors of the police academy, a month later. Had started walking next to her, tuning his long feline steps on the discreet trotting of the young woman's steps.

Had offered to drive her back her that evening, like he had got used to during their three years in Seoul.

She had accepted of a smile. Had invited herself on the passenger seat all the days that had followed.

And the years.

He had found back almost with relief the flower perfume floating near him when the white strips took off along the road. The small voice which skipped up to his heart into the oppressing silence of his world.

Slowly, very slowly, something that did not ache any more nor looked bitter had settled down on the face of the man who did not know how to smile any more.

Something that looked like peace.

One evening, he had stopped the engine and undid his seat belt.

He had not turned to her. Keeping his eyes on the dashboard, he had simply held out his hand and slid his fingers around the young woman's.

She had said nothing, but quietly, her head had settled, light, on his shoulder.

Maybe an hour had passed by, just like that, silently, in the cocoon of the car.

Ye Ri knew a lot of time would be needed.

She was ready to wait another seven other years if needed, for Ji-Hoon broken heart, locked into his prison of guilt and hatred, to accept her opening the door and sitting down in the darkness with him. For a fragile light to brighten his world of suffering and allow her to help him reconstruct his happiness.

A year had passed. And another after that.

Then Ji-Hoon suggested one evening they go eat somewhere else then the academy cafeteria. He liked sushis, she found out.

Another day, he surprised her by coming to wait for her in the library. He sat down on a chair in a corner and read for an hour an encyclopedia of crime he had not recommended to his students, his long legs crossed next to the small table on which she had left a tea cup.

She told Baek Do Shik about it when he appeared on the flight of her steps at the end of the season, like he always did. The man grumbled happily, rectified his jacket with a satisfied expression. He called her " good girl " and went away speaking for himself.

He returned from his afternoon with the professor looking even more delighted and took the coach back to province never stopping his whistling.

She laughed when she talked to Park Min-Ho on the phone, that Thursday. The young man teased her and made all sorts of crazy comments, while listening: "go, Noona, go!"

She loved these two men like true brothers and she felt cherished by them. The dismissal of TEN had not even one minute removed the feeling she belonged to a family. Her family.

Winter ended and spring came back.

And one night, on her way back home, she did not come out of the car in front her house.

Ji-Hoon opened the door of his apartment almost shyly. In the subdued light of the entrance, she read the question in his eyes and just pressed his hand.

He undid slowly the long scarf she wore, then leaned in the shadow.

He hesitated.

She smiled. Her eyes were bright, full of love.

- "Come", she murmured.

Then the Monster, the man who had lived like a wounded animal, hidden, for years, finished the movement he had begun.

He closed his eyes and kissed the lips of the woman who had tamed him.

She had the taste of a flower.

* * *

**_Next Chapter Preview_**

OP song : _Ordinary Miracle_

Moonlight

Right here. Right now.

Tears Gate


	5. OP song : Ordinary Miracle

They didn't get married.

They would probably never get married. Nam Ye Ri knew the trauma would remain for ever. When Ji-Hoon was asleep, always came a moment when he began shivering in his sleep. His face wrinkled and he mumbled in agony, searching in his nightmare for the woman he loved, taken away by his invisible enemy. He stirred, cried, called, begged.

It was her name she heard - he could not lie. But she knew he was again going through the horror of Room 101.

She leaned over him, wrapped her arms around him and held him close to her heart, kissing his hair, whispering she was here, that she would always be here. He was trembling, his forehead covered with sweat pressed against her breast, holding on to her, trying not to lose his mind to this hell.

At night, the Monster had the expression of a lost child, the same she had read on his face that terrible morning in the hotel.

No, they would not get married.

Nothing would bind her officially to a detective now professor, who had spent more than ten years of his life looking for a murderer called F.


	6. Moonlight

Step by step, he learnt to smile even when no one watched.

He was still the same, massive and feline, walking in the corridors of the academy like a king. He had kept the habit of tilting his head aside when he was lost in thoughts or when he wanted to invite somebody to think. His eyes pierced to the core of his students and he still had the same strong voice, used to lead and command. Sometimes, an order instead of an invitation escaped him and she burst out laughing in front of his disappointment when he realized she would not just follow.

He didn't give her a ring - and surely not a necklace - but he offered her a pair of earrings that looked like two drops, set in silver leaves.

She put them on and he slid a lock of long brown hair behind her ear to see them better.

He nodded, looking satisfied.

- Hum.

- You're supposed to say " you look gorgeous", or "it suits you", said Ye Ri, trying not to laugh.

- Hum.

He still wasn't much talkative.

She turned to the window of the lounge to admire the earings. This was his apartment. They didn't live together, it was still too early. Maybe he would give it a try by the end of the year… She was hopeful. He was begining to grow tired of forgetting his stuff at one or the other place.

The moon haloed the room with a blue light, sparkling in a pale brightness on the wooden floor, the young woman's skin, the transparent drops at her ears.

- It's beautiful… sighed Ye Ri, searching for Ji-Hoon's shadow in the reflection of the window.

He was by the bookcase, putting on a CD.

The music rose softly in the room.

Nam Ye Ri thought of a long time ago, of a big room filled with cardboards and with files, where she danced with a T-shirt for partner.

The man came back to her. His hands brushed against her hips, intertwined with her fingers. He embraced her and pulled her in the dance, slowly.

She closed her eyes.

- Thank you… she whispered.

She wanted the song to last all night long… _all life long_… for this feeling of serenity never to fade away.

Ji-Hoon contemplated the smile of the woman he danced with, the way his long fingers used to touch death were interlaced with Ye Ri's fingers, slender and delicate.

_So much purity and sweetness… was it okay to accept it ? Was he allowed to this ? Was it all right to believe in it_?

_" Why was my happiness taken from me?"… "Will it ever come back?"_

The question still had no answer.

But Ji-Hoon began to understand there was an alternative to happiness.

_Hope_.


	7. Right here Right now

Baek Do Shik had always been quite proud of his intuition and his observation skills.

This is why he was shocked all the more.

He was putting back his glass of beer on the table, with a content sigh, when his eyes settled on Nam Ye Ri who was laughing, on the terrace.

The young woman was standing, listening to Park Min-Ho telling her the troubles he was going through with the rookie he had been given as for partner.

The kid had matured a lot. More than six years had passed by since the first time the Viper had called him a "real detective", during Min Chae On's kidnapping. He no longer looked like too much of a lanky teenager to be credible, nor like the great boaster who flirted with the female officers to obtain information. "Nine fingers" - or "Ringo" - was a cop Detective Baek was proud to count among his friends.

But when with Nam Ye Ri, like with a big sister, Min-Ho found back his kiddy winks.

- "So much charm…" snorted the man, amused.

He rubbed his nose, crunched on a salty cracker and reached out to take back his glass, his eyes still on the terrace and the small woman wrapped in sun and in joy.

He always had a weak spot for her. Like for a younger sister you love and spoil, whose progress you consider with pride and who you protect fiercely.

He swallowed and massaged his nose between his eyes. Something was off.

He pulled a face. Maybe he should get his sight checked. He pressed on his left eyelid, then released the pressure.

No, the picture had not changed.

He cleared up his throat, raised his eyebrows to help his clouded brain and turned to look for the director.

Yeo Ji-Hoon choose this precise moment to sit down on the stool next to him with a beer bottle freshly open.

- "Another drink, _sunbaenim _?" he asked.

Baek Do Shik chewed on in space, then accepted the glass.

- "It's what you see", said the director, as if he had guessed the thought stirring under the bald skull of his former subordinate.

The detective gave him an sharp look.

His eyes returned again on the terrace, where Ye Ri's arm had made her shawl slide.

Under her light summer dress, the shape of her belly was very round and nice.

- "End of November", said Ji-Hoon with the same quiet voice.

But the extremity of his ears was red and from the way the corners of his lips went up, Baek Do Shik got the clear idea that he was a lot less neutral than he pretended.

- "You?" the detective hiccupped. "Nam Ye Ri… since when… a _baby_ ?"

Apparently he had spoken louder than he wanted because the chat on the terrace broke off.

- "You didn't know? You're getting old!" exclaimed park Min-Ho, this rascal, pretending to look stunned.

Nam Ye Ri said nothing, but she smiled shyly, nibbling her lips, like a girl waiting for a paternal blessing.

Baek Do Shik's eyes locked with Director Yeo's eyes and he deciphered a husband pride, the love of a man for a woman, fear of being a child in front of an adult's challenge, the past without illusions of a detective who had seen too much.

He heaved a sigh, put down his glass and gave a slap onto the professor's shoulder.

- "What do they usually say? _Congratulations_, isn't it?"

Ji-Hoon relaxed and Ye Ri sent him a silent look of thanks.

Behind the young woman, Park Min-Ho had not noticed that he took on a protective look when his eyes passed on his _Noona_, behind the derisive smile he shot to the Viper.

- "Ahhh… life…" sighed Baek Do Shik.

He had a sip of beer and suddenly felt very old and very happy.


	8. Tears Gate

This was pacing up and down national day.

Pacing up and down waiting for a taxi. Pacing up and down before the desk lady stopped thinking he was an an old pervert and gave him directions to the rightful ward. Pacing up and down in front of the delivery room. Then pacing up and down at the end of the corridor while waiting for Ji-Hoon, in order to capture him and prevent him from going where Ye Ri was.

The young woman, covered with sweat, had grabbed the detective's sleeve.

- Don't let himc come in, she had articulated with effort. "He shouldn't see this…"

Baek Do Shik had nodded and obeyed.

The autorithy of a woman giving birth could be a lot more impressive than that of a half-dozen gang leaders.

In the end, only Min-Ho had stayed in the delivery room, holding her hand and encouraging her with his distraught "Hang on, Noona. You can do it !"

It would have been funny in other circumstances.

But the Viper wasn't at all in the mood to laugh.

He passed his handkerchief on his forehead dripping with sweat, then put the cloth back in the pocket of his suit, before pacing up and down again.

_Anything can happen, isn't it ?_

He did not often have the opportunity to watch dramas, but according to his mother, dying in childbirth was more frequent than death in road accidents.

- "Everything's fine", Do Shik muttered for himself. "Ye Ri is strong. Our girl is stronger and cleverer than all of us together. _Aigoo_! She managed to tame the Monster, didn't she…"

He broke off.

Ji-Hoon had just appeared at the corner of the corridor. He was wearing his coat but had forgotten to take off the paper boots he had put on to examine a crime scene at the request of Head of Police Jung.

- "How's she doing?" he panted.

The detective wondered if he had run back all the way from Seoul.

- "She's been in there for a moment", he said, taking the young man by the arm and pulling him in the opposite direction of the delivery room. "We'll soon know if it's a littl' guy or a missy."

The professor freed his arm.

- "I need to be with her", he protested with a frantic look.

His eyes were round and terrified.

- "Not at all", said Baek Do Shik, catching him up. "Omma is in good hands, Appa. You'd rather come to have a cup of coffee. I'm sure you ate nothing since this morning."

Ji-Hoon dropped on a bench in the corridor. Hepassed a a hand on his face, overwhelmed.

- "I souldn't have left," he stuttered.

Baek Do Shik discovered that the more the young man worried, the more himself found back his confidence.

- "Of course yes", he retorted. He gave the man a poke then sat down next to him. " Don't worry, director Yeo. Everything will be fine."

- "_Sunbaenim_, if she… if I…"

Ji-Hoon was so much at a lost it was almost cute.

Baek Do Shik sniffed cheerfully.

- "Everything will be fine", he repeated.

And as in a moment of grace, the silence in the corridor was suddenly tinged with a plaintive wail.

Ji-Hoon got up, very straight.

Baek Do Shik considered the trembling hands of the young man with amused emotion, before noticing that his own legs were affected by a very surprising tremor.

Park Min-Ho emerged from the delivery room, removing the surgery cap they had made him wear. He looked ridiculous in the blue blouse and had a rather traumatized look.

- "It is… _done_", he concluded, apparently short of words.

Baek Do Shik let escape a victorious whistle, then made a small dance in circle on the impeccable tiled floor.

Ji-Hoon didn't seem to realize at all, frozen in the middle of the corridor, looking dull.

- "Professor", said Min-Ho, flashing a smile. "Professor, come in. Noona's waiting for you."

He pulled him towards the door, then pushed him in the room where the nurses had taken Ye Ri.

- "I'm sorry I kept you waiting…" murmured the young woman, turning her head to him.

Her face was very pale on the pillow. She passed a hand) in her hair, as to re-do it and less frighten him.

- "Good… work…" managed to stammer Ji-Hoon, without approaching.

She burst out laughing, weakly.

- "Come", she called, holding out her hand.

He stumbled to the bed, wrapped in his hands her fingers, the slender wrist pinned with the intravenous needle. sat down absent-mindedly in the chair Baek Do Shik had pulled behind him.

- "Are you okay ?"

- "Yes", said Ye Ri, caressing his face. She tilted her chin, pushed aside the folds of the blanket wrapped around the baby snuggled up against her. "Look…"

Ji-Hoon looked down and saw nothing, his eyes still clouded by retrospective fear.

- "Take her", said Ye Ri, softly guiding his hands. "Take her in your arms, Ji-Hoon-_ah_. This is your daughter."

The young man received the package awkwardly. He propped it up against his chest, his eyes still on his wife.

- "Look at her", she repeated.

He felt before he saw.

_The hot and soft weight abandoned against him like nobody had ever been. Defenseless. Very alive._

Then he met two dark eyes in which reflected his face.

The baby made a bubble, yawned very delicately.

_Small tight fists, still creased by the fight to come into the world._

A drop fell on the wrinkled cheek of the girl who didn't have a name yet.

Ji-Hoon raised his head. His throat was blocked, he could not say a word.

Ye Ri's look wrapped him with love and gentleness.

She smiled.

_This is now. Now begin happiness. Now the nightmare stops. This is here. Hope opens the door._

_Light came flowing in the dark world where he had lived for a too long time._

- "Thank you…" stammered Ji-Hoon, unable to unlock his eyes from hers.

He didn't notice he was crying.

Tears flowed without stopping on his face now lit by a sincere, calmed, pure smile.

He hiccupped.

His arms were taken by the invaluable present, and his legs wobbly, so he was not able to leave to hide the emotion submerging him.

His back shaken with sobs, he lowered his head.

Bael Do Shik wiggled, embarrassed, then took his decision and put a brotherly arm on the young man's shoulders, surly.

- "Well done, Noona", whispered Min-Ho, by-passing the bed to go press the hand of the newly mother.

Ye Ri touched the cheek of the man she loved, still smiling.

Between them two, a little girl had fallen asleep, trusting, in the arms of her father.

* * *

**Next Chapter Preview**

OP song :_ In my Veins_

**_Awakening_**

**_Unknown Caller_**

**_Friday_**


	9. OP song : In My Veins

Whispers had followed him in the prison lane, hushed, behind the railings.

- "It's an old man …"

- "No troubles…"

- "They say he killed a whole family…"

- "Long ago…"

- "Do you believe it?"

The guards were pretending not to hear a word. It was not any more the same guards who had seen the prisoner come in after his condemnation.

_How long, already?_

_Fifteen years, sixteen years? Maybe more._

The old man was no troubles. Never. He did not say a thing, worked hard, did not get involved in others' business.

_An old chap who had certainly paid off his debt to society, now._

_He deserved to go out and die in his home town, like a free man._

They gave him his hat, his coat. An old prisoner was entitled to a little of dignity.

He greeted respectfully the guard who – a little puzzled - opened the prison heavy gate.

_Certainly this quiet grandfather was not the inmate they released this day, but rather a visitor…_

He raised a hand to protect his face when the winter sun wrapped him.

The hot beams on his wrinkled skin did not seem those of the sun when he walked in the prison courtyard.

He smiled.

He was free.

_At last._


	10. Awakening

Park Min-Ho parked his car and switched off the engine. He got a chewing-gum out of his pocket, unsealed it and put it in his mouth.

He met his own gaze in the rear-view mirror.

_Seventeen years, already..._

Time flew incredibly fast. He remembered the day he had quarrelled with his father on his way home from the river - when he had decided to join in the police. He(it) was so young, at that time.

He was not particularly old, now, either, but he began to notice people caalled him "ajhussi" more and more often.

He ruffled his hair, smoothed the collar of his shirt, which came out of his pullover, and got off the car, checking his armpits absent-mindingly.

This also, he would never have believed he would see himself do it. But he was starting to understand better and better why the Viper had so much trouble to find a wife, at the time, and why most of his older colleagues wore the same outfits all week long.

The more you were involved in your job, and the less you paid attention to the details of _normal_ life.

And after seventy-two hours of hideout, you could live with not too clean boxer shorts, as long as your noodles were at the right temperature.

He stretched, yawning in the soft sun of the end of afternoon.

He had had time to take a shower and to have a fast nap before driving up to here. He knew he was going to fill his stomach and be able to relax all evening long.

_Why ask for more?_

He rolled around his index the big silver ring which hid the scar, straightened his jacket - another familiar movement he had inherited from his elders - and stamped in his Converse with satisfaction, while searching the back pocket of his jeans.

At the station, they teased him about the number of times he took out his wallet to look at the picture.

- "Hey, Ringo, how's your littl' fiancée? D'you miss her?"

He burst out laughing for himself, rubbed of his upper lip with the flat of his thumb.

_Mustache from hideout shaved : okay._

He lit up stars in his eyes as he still knew so well to do and pushed the gate.

- "Oppa!" shouted a crystalline voice, very excited.

He only had the time to squat and to stretch out his hands.

In a storm of pink silk, long black locks and shiny ribbons, Seong Hee threw herself in his arms.

- "Hey, princess. Did you miss me?"

The girl pouted.

- "When are you moving to the countryside, Oppa?"

He pinched her nose with a wide smile.

- "Tomorrow, your highness."

- "No empty promises, Min-Ho."

The young man collected the girl and got up. He propped her up on his hip and offered his hand to greet the man who had spoken.

- "Hello, professor Yeo."

- "Appa, can he stay for ever?" asked the girl snuggling her cute pout against the shoulder of the detective.

Ji-Hoon hid a small laughter in his black turtleneck.

- It's better for you to not see your prince when he comes back from work.

He gave a friendly pat to the back of the young man.

- "How good ended the hideout? Ye Ri made the bed and prepared a half-billion bottles of health tonic."

Park Min-Ho shook his chin.

- "We pitched him and I had time to have a nap. I should be able to stay two days. I switched off my mobile."

- "But you couldn't help giving them this house number, isn't it?"

The detective had a sheepish smile. The girl was making mini-plaits with a drill of his hair, babbling.

At the door, Ye Ri watched them with her sweet look. The flavor coming from the kitchen spread in the garden. It was warm, for an evening in December, almost spring weather.


	11. Unknown Caller

Baek Do Shik let go of a happy growl, while he kept rummaging with the toothpick.

- Sneaky bit of meat, he mumbled with a sigh of deep satisfaction.

It felt good being in the living-room, furnished with excellent taste. Sleeping flames shimmered in the fireplace and the pillows of the cream sofa in which he was slouched were comfortable.

He had not taken so much weight, but it was probably his age - and the junk food a too busy cop kept on eating - he looked more and more like a big beaver. Little curls over his ears had grown grey, his small eyes had sunk into his moon face and his 'prfffr' returned more and more often.

He still liked going out and about, but his old feet now preferred searching through files boxes. He had bought himself glasses, to decipher the small characters of the newspaper. Eating at fixed hours and sleeping twenty minutes after a meal now showed itself more gratifying than a karaoké evening.

He was not still married.

He still wore a navy blue suit, but it was not any more because they interrupted his arranged appointments to summon him on a crime scene. It had probably become his clothing style, somehow.

He thought awile, still chewing, his eyes on the dancing fire.

_Twenty? No, not so much …_

_Sixteen… seventeen years, here we are._

He remembered being at the library, borrowing books for the only pleasure to speak to the young woman at the counter.

_Ah, youth …_

_This was a long time ago._

He believed in it, at the time. His bad luck had certainly come from the fact he had _loved_ this woman. But in the end, a good cop could never get married, and finished his lifecovered with old scars, eating sesame noodles on his own, wasn't it a well-known fact ?

Still he wasn't going to destroy _Nine Fingers'_ deludings. Maybe _'Ringo'_ would eventually have more luck than him…

He snorted, satisfied to have gotten rid of the meat bit, and gulped down the rest of his beer.

In front of him, Park Min-Ho inhaled, his open mouth, his head knocked down on the top of the wide armchair. Snuggled up against him, her tiny fingers rolled up on a fold of his pullover, asleept Seong Hee made a small delicate noise. A foot in white stocking sticked out of her dress.

Baek Do Shik giggled.

- "These small cute feet…"

A bass laughter echoed his.

The professor sat down on the other armchair with two fresh beers.

- "It is very cute when it sleeps, much less once awoken", he commented, amused. "Incredible, the number of words that come out in a minute from the mouth of a child this age."

The Snake wasn't fooled.

- "Daddy's girl, hey?"

Ji-Hoon rubbed his eyebrow, a smile of excuse on his face sharpened by the shadows the fire cast.

- "I can't admit she leads me by the nose, _hyung-nim_! Imagine my pupils heard about it."

Baek Do Shik laughed with him.

With time, the relationship between both men had evolved. It had gotten deeper, enriched. Now, neither of them could remember the days when they were in competition, unable to understand each other or to admit their errors.

- "Another beer?"

- "Hum."

They drank silently, drinking without saying to the peaceful years that had passed by. To life, they were grateful for still having.

To this priceless present that was peace of heart, sprinkled in the house by a girl who had none of their bitter memories.

- "Are you also going to Seoul, next Wednesday?"

Ji-Hoon agreed.

- "They asked me to, yesterday. It's been two years since I went last to a crime scene… I thought they had forgotten me", he added after a mouthful of beer, amused.

- It's better for the kid, that you don't travel any more so often. And a professor does not need to be on a crime scene…

Another moment of silence, during which the telephone rang, then the brown eyes of Ji-Hoon sparkled under his dark lashes.

- When will _you_ retire and dedicate yourself to your plantation of tomatoes, _hyung-nim_?

Baek Do Shik snorted cheerfully.

- "Ha… who knows? I have not found me yet the perfect wife !"

Ji-Hoon turned his head to the kitchen, a soft expression on his face.

The Snake nodded.

_Yes.. It was the best thing that happened to you, meeting her. It was the best thing that happened to us all : 'Special Affairs team TEN'. In spite of all the sufferings we endured, this was the key of another life - of a new life - for each of us._

Ye Ri came and settled on the armrest, next to her husband, with her herbal tea.

- "They're so cute…" she murmured tenderly, blowing on the hot drink.

- "I'll put her in her bed before she catches a cold", said Ji-Hoon, starting to get up.

She grabbed his sleeve.

- "Min-Ho keeps her warm, it's okay."

He gave up without battle, slid his arm around his wife's waist, streched his long legs on the carpet.

- "Who was it, on the phone?"

- "Nobody. A wrong number, I suppose."

Ye Ri's earrings shone in the orange light that bathed the living-room.

Baek Do Shik sipped his beer, relaxed.

The inspector's and the little girl's breaths were in rhythm with the discreet noise of the fire sparkling in the hearth.

Life was good.


	12. Friday

Ye Ri nodded, then remembered he could not see her.

- "We'll be okay", she said in the receiver. "She asked for you a little, but she didn't cry. She's a big girl, she knows you have to work and can't do as you wish."

- "It's three whole days, in the end… I really hoped to come back tonight. This is so stupid. I didn't think they would insist so much for us to participate in the investigation."

She had a small laughter.

Ji-Hoon's voice reminded her of a child deprived of dessert.

She signed to Seong Hee who played on the living-room carpet.

- "Come talk to Appa, He's sad he can't be with us!"

The girl grabbed the plush bear who drank tea in front of her and came running. She took the receiver with a graceful gesture and rested it against her cheek.

- "Appa? Is it cold in Seoul?"

- "Not too much, it's okay", answered Ji-Hoon who hopped on the spot next to the car, his white breath smoking in the thick fog wrapping the city.

Baek Do Shik shot him a mocking eye through the windshield. He was perfectly guessing what the conversation was about.

- "Are you a good girl? Don't eat too much candy. I'll bring back a surprise for you, tomorrow."

- "A doll?"

Ji-Hoon thought for a moment.

- "No. But I won't give you any clues."

- "That's not nice!"

He laughed.

- "I love you, precious."

- "I love you too, Appa."

She returned the phone to her mother.

- "See you tomorrow, Ji-Hoon-_ah_, don't forget to sleep at least a bit", said Ye Ri, the receiver stuck between her shoulder and her ear, while retying the brait ribbon of the little girl.

- "I'm not thirty any more", giggled her husband. "I shall leave the night interrogations with Min-Ho. D'you know they also called him? I won't tell Seong Hee before tomorrow, I don't want to have to run to the other end of the building to give him the phone."

- "She will be crossed with you", warned Ye Ri.

- "What did he say?" asked Seong Hee, looking up. "Is it about my surprise? What is it ?"

- "I still don't know what I'll get her", confessed Ji-Hoon who had heard the question. He blew on his fingers to warm them, his chin buried in his jacket's collar. "It's so cold, here! But we don't even have snow."

- "They say we'll have some tomorrow, at home. Do you have enough clothes? I didn't planned on you staying until the end of the week."

- "I did some laundry at the hotel. Do you also want something from Seoul?"

Ye Ri pretended to think for a few seconds. Seong Hee had returned to the carpet and spoke to the plush bear she rocked in her arms.

- "Just you, it'll be enough", finally said the young woman.

Ji-Hoon laughed again.

- "See you tomorrow."

- "I love you", answered Ye Ri.

She switched off the phone, noticed the call light flashed.

_Unknown caller_.

Somebody was getting their phone number wrong on regular basis, lately.

- "What are we having for dinner, tonight?" she asked, turning to her daughter.

- "Noodles!"

Ye Ri sighed, amused.

- "You'll eat all the noodles you want when you're a detective. Why don't we have an only-for-girls dish, for once?"

Seoung Hee blew in her cheeks, tilted her head aside, wrinkled her eyes – then smiled, showing her baby teeth.

- "Okay!" she exclaimed.

- "Ah, phew…" said Ye Ri. "I was starting to think we'd never use the sugar flowers Min-Ho Oppa brought for your birthday…"

The girl ran up to her immediately, with sparkling eyes, her plush bear stuck under her arm.

- "Sugar flowers?"

Ye Ri leaned to open the cupboard and show them to her.

She did not see the shadow that quickly passed outside of the house, behind the plants on the window over the kitchen sink.

The evening was growing red, night falling slowly.

The calendar showed : "_month_: December ; _date_: 09 ; _day_: Thursday".

* * *

_**Next Chapter Preview**_

OP song : _I Can't Break It To My Heart_

_Message_

_A little shoe_

_Tape_


	13. OP song : I Can't Break It To My Heart

The weather was cold and dry. The sun leaked out through the fog, drilling the clouds with a shimmering blue sky corner.

- "Let's use that bit of light to take a picture!" exclaimed Park Min-Ho, quite excited exclaimed. " It's not every day the whole team is gathered on a crime scene."

- "Ye Ri isn't here", specified the professor, with a sneaky smile.

- "Ha! I meant the men of TEN, the testosterone - the guys, now!

Ji-Hoon laughed openly, this time.

Baek Do Shik looked down at his suit.

- "I'll again look like a scarecrow…" he muttered. He tapped the frizzy tufts of hair on each side of his head. "Bah… too bad."

Park Min-Ho called up a policeman who was coming out, skipping under the yellow strips.

- "Please", he asked, stretching out his cellphone. "Can you take a picture of us?"

The guy stared at him, embarrassed.

_Funny consultants, really…_

They had made them come, calling them "the aces", but somebody must had done a mistake.

He focused the three heads on the screen, waited for the green signal, then pressed on the button.

_Click!_

An old man with a moon face in a navy blue suit, fabric worn out on the elbows and knees, his hands in his pockets, a little bit paunchy, with grey little curls and a blissful look.

A chipping young man, in cashmere vest and tie, white smile and a starry wink, his police badge carefully pinned to his jacket's pocket.

And a man with the quiet look, in black polo neck sweater and long beige jacket, wide shoulders, feet standing firmly on the asphalt, who smiled, amused, between them two.

Nobody could earnestly believe these three were the alive legends of the merciless _Special Affairs Team TEN_.


	14. Message

Ji-Hoon pressed on the remote control and changed the picture on the meeting room screen.

- "If we consider the victims were given drugs to keep them quiet until he killed them, but that he did not touch them _until_ a certain moment, then the date and the exact hour of their deaths surely have crucial importance for the criminal."

He looked at Min-Ho, under the annoyed eyes of the seventeen other members of the special team gathered to investigate.

Surely somebody _else_ also had this information, but with an annoying habit, the professor always turned to the young detective when it came to data.

On the screen, the picture showed the three victims - father, daughter-in-law and eight-year-old grandson - such as they had been discovered the previous week: in the middle of the green living-room, tied up and sitting each on a chair, back to back in a circling shape, each lowered head in a paper bag.

There were no signs of fight, only the vestiges of a not very clean nor very tidy family.

On the mirror which occupied the wall in length, four big letters had been painted in a bloody red.

_"FAKE"_

It was not blood, though, but oil paint - there wasn't the slightest drop of blood anywhere. The victims had cleanly been suffocated, before the criminal had thread them with a gallow hat of brown paper.

- "All of them have died between 20:00 to 20:15 on December the 03rd", read Min-Ho when he found the information on his notepad. "Last Friday, in other words."

Baek Do Shik scratched his nose, leaning against the wall.

_03._

_" Fake. "_

_Father, Daughter, Grandson._

There was a silence in which you could almost hear the brains ruminate and rustle in search of a link in the collected data.

- "I get it", said suddenly Detective Lee.

It was the arrogant young man to whom the investigation had belonged before the Head of Police had decided to turn it into national teamwork. Min-Ho and Ji-Hoon knew him, they had met him during the case of professor Kang's suicide, when the kid was still only a pupil at the Police Academy - already recognized a genius.

He got up and grabbed an erasable felt-tip pen.

- "_Fake_, for deceit. The man: _father_", he scribbled on the glass panel. "Daughter: _female_, the third of december: _Friday_. Do we know anything special about the kid? Something beginning with a -F-."

There was a sceptical rustle.

- "Do you think you're back to the golden age, Detective Lee?" scoffed somebody.

- "It's been a case closed for ten years!" growled out somebody else.

None of the former members of special team TEN would have called this time "the golden age", though. Too much bitter memories were bound to the initial F.

Ji-Hoon focused on the picture on the screen.

Park Min-Ho shook his head, chewing on the hood of his pen.

- "That does not make sense… he never murdered a whole family…only women…" mumbled Baek Do Shik, not wanting to let go of the slightest random coincidence.

_Family_ also began with an F, in English.

Detective Lee pouted, blowing a rather condescending eye on the room. He opened his mouth but Ji-Hoon interrupted him.

- "If this is a copy-cat murder, then writing "fake" would make sense, he said slowly, putting his hands in his pockets. He paced a bit, thoughtful. "But why tell us, then? An accomplice who would have given the game away? And why? Or was there a second passage on the crime scene before we discovered i)? Somebody who had a reason for not calling the police but preferred to write this…"

Now, the investigators gathered around the long oval table began to think about it too.

Detective Lee pulled a face, annoyed and dropped in his seat.

Obviously, once the hypothesis had passed through the professor's mouth, they took account of it without making it a laughing matter.

- "Where does the paint they used to write it come from ? Was it already on the spot?"

Min-ho quickly went through his notepad.

- "No", he answered, scratching his neck. "We established the murderer had brought it with him."

- "Thus it was planned", thought aloud the professor. He crossed his arms, settled comfortably in front of the image with the sharpened face which his former teammates knew by heart. "No person X who discovers the scene, that is. Unless it was a house painter equipped with the exact can of blood red oil paint…"

His thumb went to his upper lip, finding back the familiar spot of intense reflection.

The phone rang. Detective Lee leaned in and picked up the receiver in front of him.

- "It's for you, professor", he said after a few minutes. "The caller didn't give his name, but they insisted with the desk lady, saying it's about the current investigation.

Ji-Hoon nodded. His eyes didn't leave the screen.

- "Put him in loudspeaker", he said absently.

There was a light crackling when the call passed into the baffles, then a light humming.

- "Yeo Ji-Hoon, speaking", said the professor, still perched on the edge of the table, focused on the picture.

Around the table, some officers were consulting their notes, others waited to know what the call was going to bring as element to the investigation.

The humming was disturbed by a stifled noise, something you could take for a groan or a sniffing.

Ji-Hoon raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

- Hello?

Still the humming, then a metallic sound.

And immediately after, a choked sob, the frightened cry of a mouse.

Somebody was crying on the phone.

Ji-Hoon uncrossed his arms slowly and stood up.

Baek Do Shik's small eyes narrowed even more.

Min-Ho tilted his head aside, as he frowned.

Then they heard a small broken voice.

- "A… Ap-p-a… A… A…Ap-p-a… come and g-get me, A-ppa … A-p-pa… p-p…p-p-lease… A-ppa…"

Ji-Hoon's face lost all color.

He opened his mouth but no sound came out of it.

The communication broke off suddenly and Detective Lee stretched out his hand to switched off the sizzling that resounded in the loudspeakers.

- Was that a child?

- What does it mean?

- What's all this about?

- Where does the call come from?

Questions came spurted out from everywhere in the room.

Min-Ho banged his knee against the foot of the table as he got up to run to the professor who had remained motionless. Baek Do Shik quickly passed by the table and came to join them. He grabbed the arm of the man.

- "It was Seong Hee's voice, right?" he whispered.

Min-Ho was dialing a number on his cellphone, a hand on the professor's shoulder.

- "Noona isn't answering her mobile", he said, out of breath. "I'll try calling the landline !"

Detective Lee got up and thumped the table with a file to capture everyone's attention.

- "Silence!" he ordered. "Professor Yeo, what does that mean?"

All heads turned to the end of the table and, at this moment, the policemen realized something was wrong.

Min-Ho was always still on the phone and paced in circles, whispering.

- Pick up… pick up… pick up…

Baek Do Shik massaged the nape of his neck, his eyes on the ground, teeth clenched.

The professor was petrified, with an empty look in his eyes.

- "Professor Yeo?"

Detective Lee frowned.

- "No answer", announced Min-Ho, giving a punch to the suspended screen which crinkled for a second.

- "Who's this bastard and how does he know you're here?" hissed Baek Do Shik.

- "Excuse me!" yelled Detective Lee, annoyed.

As in echo, another voice launched the same question from the meeting room door.

- "Excuse me… a delivery for professor Yeo. A parcel to be delivered personally."

Ji-Hoon turned his head, dulled.

- "Who's the sender?" darkened Baek Do Shik, rushing to the delivery boy.

- "Er … No name here. Just a PO box and a message. Er… "I miss you already."

He was deprived of the parcel, surprised by the way the man tore it away from his hands.

- "It's true", confirmed the detective, after searching thoroughly the outside of the box.

The skin between his eyebrows had wrinkled even more.

- "There's only an initial."

Park Min-Ho's face became white. His fingers tightened on the professor's sleeve.

- "F."

Some people got up, others were whispering.

- "What is that?

- "It is a bad joke?"

Baek Do Shik returned to the end of the table with the small rectangular package and paused before giving it to the professor.

- "It's an express courier. It was sent this morning."

- "Open it, professor", said Min-Hoo, slowly pressing on the man's shoulder to make him sit down on the chair pushed behind him.

Ji-Hoon tore the safety tape and the contents of the package slid out out of the brown paper.

All the eyes were on him.

It was a small plastic pink icebox, like those used by children for their school lunch.

Min-Ho's eyes widened with fear as Baek Do Shik snatched the small box and stepped away from Ji-Hoon.

- "Give it back, _Hyung_", murmured Ji-Hoon with a pleading look.

- "No", articulated the detective.

Horror had filled the room as a thick fog, a sinking veil that changed up to the color of objects, furniture and faces.

Everybody gathered in this room knew very well what was in the pink box.

Baek Do Shik turned his back on the rest of the room, inspired and blew deeply. His hand trembled as he approached the plastic clasp.

He did not want to imagine what was inside.

_One of Ye Ri's slender fingers or a small baby finger, on a bed of ice…_

Ji-Hoon had stopped breathing.

Min-Ho's eyes were filled with hot tears.

The clasp made a little noise as it opened.


	15. A little shoe

Min-Ho was holding his left hand in front of his mouth, while his right hand drew soothing circles in the back of the professor who was bending over the sink.

_Why…_

_Why…_

_Why…_

It was cold in the men's toilet room and quite dark.

Min-Ho tried to put as much comfort as he could in his gesture.

Ji-Hoon was shaken by a last hiccup and threw up, folded in two. His knuckles were white on the sink marbled edge. He stood up, opening the faucet, met his pale reflection, forehead flooded with sweat.

- "D'you feel any better?" whispered the young inspector, awkwardly.

He tore away a handful of paper from the distributor and gave it to the professor.

Ji-Hoon did not answer.

He waited for the sink to be clear, then rinsed his mouth and splashed his face before accepting the paper towels.

His eyes lowered, he stepped out to leave the room.

- "Thank you..."

His voice was barely audible.

- "Professor…" murmured Min-Ho.

They passed by Detective Lee who had waited in the corridor, next to the toilets door and who stared at the professor unbelievingly, before catching the inspector by the arm.

- "I know this was no fun, but why such a reaction? He was a detective for longer than anyone here…"

Min-Ho stared at him.

There was more concern than disappointment in the detective's eyes.

Min-Ho waited for Ji-Hoon to enter the meeting room.

- "We're talking about his wife and daughter being abducted", he sighed finally. "Anyone would go nuts in his shoes…"

Detective Lee opened wide eyes, stunned.

In the room, Baek Do Shik had probably given the same explanation to the others, because nobody looked weird when the professor returned after running out ten minutes earlier.

The icebox was still on the oval table.

Ji-Hoon approached it slowly.

He bit his lip, closed a fist.

The silence was thick in the room.

- "We'll get him", said the Viper in a low voice, putting his hand on the professor's shoulder. "We _are_ going to save Ye Ri and our kid."

Ji-Hoon nodded, almost imperceptibly.

His eyes were staring at the contents of the box.

It was not filled with ice cubes, but with green silk paper.

Between the folds was snuggled up a small shoe.

The perfect little girl shoe, black and shiny and cute, with a label on the sole that said "Seong Hee".

The man held out his hand. He hesitated, then took the shoe.

Something slid and fell in the box.

Ji-Hoon breathed in deeply, tipping over his head for one moment as to prevent his tears from overflowing. He took back the control of his emotion and his eyes went back to the green silk paper.

A transparent earring sparkled at the bottom of the box.

He closed his eyes.

Then reopened them.

Everybody was looking at him and everybody saw the transformation take place in a few seconds.

His chin tilted on the side. His eyes got thinner, under his accentuated eyebrows, on his sharpened features. His mouth folded in a sarcastic grin. His shoulders tightened as if invisible wings streched out in his back. All his body curled up like an animal going into hunting.

- "Let's go", he ordered.

He put the shoe back in the box and shut the icebox swiftly, before leaving the room with long and strong strides.

Baek Do Shik and Park Min-Ho did not hesitate and followed him immediately, getting back their coats and his.

- "The _Monster_…has awoken", murmured somebody.

Detective Lee had ever seen something so impressive.

They drove back without really seeing the road. The car parked in a wreath of snow in front of the house and Ji-Hoon rushed out the driver seat after grabbing the small pink box that had traveled under the windscreen.

The door was closed. Just before taking out his keys, the man broke off. His piercing look settled on the flowerpot next to the step.

- Wait, he warned, raising a hand to stop the two others who were behind him.

He squatted. Reached out. His fingers brushed for a moment against the ceramic, then he lifted the jar, quickly.

The house keys were where he kept telling Ye Ri not to put them when she went out.

He collected them and stood up.

- "He knows our habits perfectly", he stated dully.

The door opened as any other day, slid on the wooden floor effortlessly.

The same smell.

No sound.

No voice.

He stepped in, took off his shoes absently. The sun of the end of afternoon streammed through the windows.

- Ye Ri?

Nobody would answer, he knew it.

His eyes searched the living-room, the cream sofa and the well arranged pillows, the big bookcase, the green plants by the window, the frames on the shelves, the round table where Seong Hee left her pencils and drawings.

Everything was perfectly at its place.

Min-Ho skipped behind him, went to the kitchen, using his phone as a camera.

- "We need the forensics", said Baek Do Shik next to him. " We'll need to analyze all this. There must be prints."

Ji-Hoon nodded.

- I know.

He went across the room, to the corridor.

Their bedroom seemed intouched as well. The door was half-opened and he had a glimpse of the white duvet and the blue shawl Ye Ri had left on top of it, with a book - as he often saw it in this place.

He stood still in front of the door at the end of the corridor. Tightened his fists in his pockets and breathed in before pressing on the handle.

He pushed the flap which slid, hushed, on the clear carpet.

The bedroom was bathed in an ethereal light.

_Seong Hee burst out of a happy laughter next to the round canopy with the veil sowed with pearls which turned her bed into a "real princess's bed". _

He was taken in a waltz, the room swirled around him in sweet colors.

_Seong Hee was sitting in the small rocking chair with her plush bear and rocked, a big blue ribbon bow in her hair._

_Seong Hee turned around and smiled with all her tiny teeth, shaking a glass ball in which swirled snowflakes._

_Seong Hee was dancing on the carpet, dressed like a fairy, in the happy song of little bells._

_Seong Hee was sliding of her bed and ran up towards him._

_- "Appa!"_

- "Ji-Hoon-_ah_!"

The abrupt voice of Baek Do Shik made him quiver. He realized he had knelt down, as to receive his daughter in his arms.

He looked around, lost.

The bedroom was empty.

Much more tidy than it had never been.

- "She's not there…" he murmured.

The old detective squatted next to him, pressed his shoulder friendly.

- "We'll find her", he said one more time. "Focus."

Ji-Hoon swallowed.

It was at this moment he realized what was not at its place in the room.

There was a small shoe in the middle of the bed, on the flowery duvet.

Another black little shoe, identical to the one the icebox contained.


	16. Adhesive Tape

Ye Ri came back to consciousness in small touches, like a light dotting through the fog.

_It was dark._

_So dark._

Her head was throbbing, she hurt everywhere and at the same time she couldn't feel her arms and her legs.

She had the hideous feeling her skin was covered with hot dough.

_No._

Her hair were pinched on her forehead.

It was not dough, but _tape_. Tape wrapped all over her face. The king of tape you use when you move out, wide and resistant.

The same tape that was wrapped around her face in the warehouse where she had almost to die.

Her heart bumbled, her breath speed up. She wanted to open her mouth, but her lips were sealed by green and sticky plastic. She stirred, moaned - her brain darkened as air tried a find a way out through her throat.

_No - no - no - no – NO_

She lost consciousness, again.

When she came back to her senses, she realized a tiny stream of oxygen skipped up to her nostrils.

A small space between the adhesive strips.

She tried hard to calm down, to contain the storm of desperation that rose in her oesophagus and threatened to suffocate her again.

_I'm still alive._

_Where am I?_

_Where's Seong Hee?_

_What happened?_

Taking in a big breath was impossible, of course. And she needed to remind herself constantly that her nose was cleared, even if her mouth could not open.

Something was tightened around her chest.

_Ropes._

She was sitting, tied up to a chair.

The adhesive tape twinge also burned her wrists, in her back. Her arms hurt, twisted behind the chair.

She tried to move her legs, realized her ankles were also tied up.

She couldn't hear a thing. No noise of car, or wind, or even a throat scrap.

_Was the one who held her prisoner here ?_

_What had he done with Seong Hee?_

Her head hurt, still clouded. She could remember speaking to Ji-Hoon on the phone, but had brain no memory of what had happened afterwards.

_Ji-Hoon._

_Oh no._

_He will hurt so much …_

Tears bubbled at the edge of her eyes, behind the plastic. They slid between the adhesive tape strips, following an unusual path, pearling up to the edge of her nose, then somewhere under her ear. For a moment, salty water blocked her nostril - and the teensy stream of air. She choked.

_Don't cry._

_Don't cry at any cost._

She swallowed and discovered swallowing was something she shouldn't do as well. Her throat was dry and burnt, and she was in dire need of a cup of cold water.

There was a noise – hushed – not far from her. Then a movement, as if something bounced.

She tilted her head aside, attentive, trying hard to shut out her fear.

_It couldn't be "him"._

_Maybe it was an animal._

She smelt nothing, no straw or animal scent.

There was a stifled moan.

_Was anybody else prisoner with her?_

Her heart swelled with hope…

_Seong Hee._

Then broke.

- Ooo-m-ma… o-o-mm-a …

The small, terrified, sobbing voice of her little girl.

She wanted to speak, but she couldn't. She stirred, moved her feet, moved some dust that came blocking up the free space between the strips of tape.

She blew throught her nostrils to clear them, desperate.

_Seong Hee! Seong Hee, Omma is here! Seong Hee! It's okay, It's okay… Oh baby…_

She tried to bite the adhesive tape, managed only to scrape it with her teeth and fill her mouth with the disgusting smell of green plastic.

- Omma?

The question was so fragile, so lost.

Ye Ri banged her wrists against the steel of the chair, hoping the ringing of her bracelet would be familiar.

- Omma!

Again the stifled noise, then the bouncing on the ground, followed by what had to be a fall. A gasp, then the movement got closer to her.

_Seong Hee… Seong hee…_

A shrill cry, terrified.

At the same moment, a hand grabbed her shoulder brutally and the fear that spurted out in her was sufficient) to make her almost lose consciousness.

She felt someone cut the adhesive tape, freeing her numb wrists. Somebody twisted her sluggish arm and she felt something cold and metallic against her skin.

A jingle.

One of her arms was free, but the other one was handcuffed to something.

_Seong Hee! What had he done to her daughter?_

Heavy steps went away.

She was trembling, trying hard not to let anxiety convince her she could not breath.

- Oo-m-m-a …

She reached out a groping arm, touched somebody.

_Seong Hee? Oh, please be it her!_

A tiny button strawberry shaped.

_Oh, baby…_

Her hand touched the chin of the little girl who shivered violently.

_It's me, Seong Hee. I'm here. Omma's here, my love…_

She patted the child's cheek, cupped her ear in her hand as she always did. After a moment of hesitation, Seong Hee seemed to recognize the gesture and her head snuggled up to the hand.

Ye Ri's blood froze.

Her fingers had feel something cold and rough – something made of plastic.

_The little girl was blindfolded with a wide strip of adhesive tape._

Ye Ri felt a roaring of fury winding in her chest, growing against the ropes who held her prisoner.

_Who dare to do this to a child?_

She wanted to bite, to throw her legs around her and reach to their kidnapper, to hurt him.

But she didn't move.

_If he was there, maybe he would pay back by separating her from Seong Hee._

_If he was not here, such a movement could frighten even more the little girl who could not see._

She pulled the child to her, put her on her lap, felt her snuggle up against her chest, sobbing quietly.

-Omma… I a-am s-s-ca-red… O-o-mm-a …

Seong Hee was not hurt. Adhesive was closely rolled up around her ankles and her wrists tied up in front of her. Her feet were cold in her scratched tights. But except for the tape on her eyes, she wasn't wearing the same green torture mask.

Ye Ri wished to kiss her, but she didn't want the plastic on her face to touch the little girl's skin. She hugged strong her baby, rocked her to calm her tears, hoping the beating of her heart would be enough to reassure the child.

_Do you hear me, Seong Hee? I'm here… I won't leave you… don't worry…_

She banished her own fear.

She would stand firm, until they come to save them from this hell.

_Ji-Hoon._

_Come to save us, please._

* * *

_**Next Chapter Preview**_

OP song : _Chase_

_**Clues**_

_**'Freak'**_

_**'Long time no see'**_


	17. OP song : Chase

On the big screens of the city, the kidnapped girl's face appeared from a building to the other one. A little girl with long black curls, a pink silk ribbon in her hair, who smiled slyly at the photographer, her head tilted aside.

_Whoever is able to provide information about Yeo Seong Hee, who has been missing since Thursday evening, is asked to dial the number below or to contact immediately the closest police station._

They were warning the citizens not to try anything, because the kidnapper could turn out to be extremely nervous and dangerous.

But nowhere was it said that the mother of the child had been kidnapped at the same time.

The police thought the young woman was already dead.


	18. Clues

There were no prints in the house. Nowhere. From the front door handle to the little shoe left on the bed, everything had been perfectly wiped.

Park Min-Ho was kneeling down in the living-room, next to the telly, and nibbled his thumb nail.

- "Why send us the package and make the effort to call if you left no clues in the house?" He thought aloud.

Baek Do Shik was leaning against the wall in the bedroom, arms crossed, his eyes on the pale blue carpet.

_Did he take the child with him because she had seen him, or was it his plan from the start? Why does a serial killer trouble himself with a hostage?_

Yeo Ji-Hoon was in the kitchen, bending over the kitchen sink, so lost in thoughts he looked like a statue.

- "Why did you not defend yourself, Ye Ri? Where did he come from?" he murmured, his eyes searching the slightest details of the cooking plane surface, the plants on the window shelf, the empty pan on the gas cooker, the half empty bag of sugar flowers, the clean spoon and the glass of water …

His eyes glistened.

_An almost EMPTY bag of sugar flowers._

_But no track of sugar anywhere._

He lifted the container of wooden spoons, the boxes, the flowerpots. Bent to pass his fingers on the cupboard doors in search of sticky tracks, knelt down to examine the tiled floor.

- "Come and see this!" Min-Ho exclaimed at this moment.

He raised his head. The young man was showing the telly.

_A red button flashed on the video recorder._

Ji-Hoon got up immediately and rushed to him, telling an analyst on his way to look under the cupboards. Baek Do Shik appeared from the corridor and came to join them after a last "go through this bedroom with a fine-tooth comb first and foremost! " to the forensic team.

- "Ye Ri would have switched it off, isn't it? If they were done watching the movie. And if they were interrupted, why would the culprit only _paused_, instead of switching off everything?"

Ji-Hoon nodded, his throat tight.

Baek Do Shik blew through his teeth, his small eyes shrunk to the size of cracks.

- "Well done, Min-Ho."

The young man switched on the screen and pressed on the _play_ button.

It was a video filmed by a rather bad quality camcorder, but they recognized the living-room. The cam had been set on the telly top.

In the background, they could see Ye Ri's body, sluggish, on the tiled floor of the kitchen.

- "God…" blew Min-Ho, his hands squeezed on his pad.

Seong Hee's face, drowned in tears, appeared on the screen, very close. She had probably been pushed and looked upper left, as if somebody spoke to her.

They could hear strictly nothing.

A black glove entered the picture. It held a dictaphone and made an imperious gesture.

Seong Hee was trembling, terrified.

She sniffed, then spoke through her sobs and the three men knew exactly about what she was saying.

- "Useless to continue analyzing the phone recording", mumbled Baek Do Shik. "It was made here."

The dictaphone disappeared, then another thick glove appeared, holding a roll of adhesive tape.

Min-Hoo grabbed the professor's sleeve.

Baek Do Shik's teeth were so tight they creaked.

Ji-Hoon let a groan of pain when the green strip was wildly rolled up around the eyes of the little girl.

They could hear nothing.

But Seong Hee screamed with terror.

Then the screen went out abruptly and the white and grey pixels danced in front of them in a deaf humming.

- "How d-d-does he dare?" stuttered Min-Ho, choking up.

- "The bastard. The dog. Oh, I'm so going to kill him", roared Baek Do Shik, shivering with fury.

Ji-Hoon stepped aside, as if he had lost his balance.

His eyes stared at the screen – big, empty.

- "Professor Yeo?"

Park Min-Ho was pleading. He pressed the arm of the professor.

- "Please…"

He did not know what to say any more.

_Don't lose it now._

_He's torturing you on purpose._

_We ARE going to save them, for sure… For sure._

_Please don't go crazy …_

Baek Do Shik turned his eyes to his former boss and bit his lip.

_Has not he suffered enough? _

_Why? WHY?_

He put his hand on the shoulder of the man.

- "Ji-Hoon-_ah_ … Do you remember what I told you, long ago? I'll find him, and I'll beat him for you. I promise."

The professor nodded slowly, without looking at him.

His eyes were filled with tears that did not pour.

- "Sorry. You have to see this …"

Ji-Hoon quivered. He turned around.

The analyst dressed in white presented him the tablet with which he had taken the picture.

- "It was under the cupboard, quite far."

In the sugar dust on the black tiled floor, somebody had drawn three letters.

_O-L-D_

Baek Do Shik frowned.

- "This is Noona's writing, she managed to leave a message in spite of this nutcase", livened up Min-Ho.

- "But when? How didn't he notice?"

Ji-Hoon made a movement towards the television, as to start the video again, but was interrupted by another forensic who arrived running from the corridor.

- "Look at this!" He exclaimed. "It was under the little girl's bed, stuck on the slats of the bed base with chewing gum."

He displayed on the coffee table a dozen Polaroid pictures.

Ji-Hoon knelt down, scattering the photos to have an overview.

They were women's portraits.

All of them sitting on chairs.

All of them tied up.

All of them with a disfigured face or their head wrapped up in plastic shroud.


End file.
